How To Save A Life
by matanee
Summary: Post CA:TWS. When danger arises, Bucky Barnes is there. But is it Bucky Barnes or is it the Winter Soldier?


"He's a ghost. You'll never find him."

He marveled at the colours of his homeland on the shield in his hands. He cracked a smile - he wondered how it didn't start bleeding. It was that bitter.

"No," he shook his head. "But he will find me."

* * *

There was another round and he drank the glass out. He asked for the next one and the next after that. He didn't drink to forget this time - it would have been of no use. He had fun.

"Are you sure I shouldn't walk you home?"

Sam continued laughing hysterically. He probably had no idea what he found so funny, but it made Steve grin nonetheless.

"I am jealous, you know," Sam found his balance at once. The famous Falcon, blind drunk. It was a sight.

"Of what?"

"You can't get drunk."

Steve chuckled, waving his hand as he moved backwards.

"It was in the fine print."

* * *

The strange fighter moved like lightning and, even in the dim light of the street lamps, Steve found him elegant. He must have been a trained killer. He ignored what his chest hummed to him and he concentrated on the blackness that fogged his left eye completely, then, he leaned back. He welcomed the cold of the concrete underneath him and he listened, he listened to the screams.

_They fought so well, _he thought in the emptiness of his mind. Another one fell to the ground, another bone was broken, and another one managed to stand up. The ninja sent them all back to even the floor, then, he picked up Steve.

Captain America found it funny how careful and soft the other's touch was, even though he had to carry a not exactly lightweight soldier on his shoulders. He fought people only a moment before, now he was holding Steve.

Only one man could do that, exactly the same way.

Steve dismissed the ghost of a smell in his nose, the annoying itch underneath his skin because it was so familiar, the way this man moved, and he lost consciousness.

* * *

"Don't move."

Steve winced but he obeyed. He felt like he had been just dragged out of an alley somewhere behind a fast-food restaurant, and straight away taken to the flat he spent countless weeks in. The person who tended to him there didn't have cool metal as his left hand, though.

Steve just didn't feel like thinking. The needle was working dangerously close around his eye, but he stayed still.

"Do you remember when my nose was almost broken and you insisted you could take care of it?" The words that left his mouth felt like feathers in the air and Steve sighed softly. He smiled. "The neighbours thought you were skinning me alive, I was screaming like a kid. I was a kid."

The dark, long haired figure didn't even blink, he kept his eyes strictly on Steve's injury. Steve watched him with one eye open, waiting for some kind of reaction.

_So he doesn't remember._

"Who were those guys?" The light nostalgia was long gone from Steve's voice and it actually drew Bucky's glance for a moment. Then, he went back to the stitches. "Why did they want to kill me?"

"They are taking orders from somebody," Bucky answered, his voice indifferent and cold. Steve swallowed hard but didn't speak. "There are still some people left behind from Hydra. They were following you for a while now."

"Then you were following me too," Steve concluded, but Bucky just pushed at him a little harder and Steve winced. He might have made it look like an accident, but Steve knew it was on purpose. "Who are you taking your orders from?"

"No one."

"Then why were you following me?"

Bucky finished the stitches and stood up, throwing his hair behind his shoulder. The dim lights of the warehouse they were in lit him from behind and he looked even taller like this. Steve looked up at him with his injury-free right eye.

"Because you are still a kid and I guessed it wouldn't be only a broken nose this time."

Steve didn't have an answer for that.

* * *

Bucky made himself known more in the coming weeks. Steve wasn't attacked again, but he did keep an eye open everywhere he went. His left eye was healing slowly but he could remove the stitches after a while and he could also use it gradually more. It was with his left eye that, every single time, he caught Bucky lurking in the shadows.

He didn't say a word, he probably didn't want anyone to speak to him. He was there, though, more and more often, and he followed Steve back home from the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters every day. It soon became part of the day: no matter how late Steve was, Bucky followed him home like a loyal puppy.

Steve stayed silent for a while, trying to give Bucky his private space for about two weeks. Then, one evening, he wasn't there.

Swallowing his worry for the umpteenth time in the last five minutes (the way, ideally, would have taken a good fifteen minutes, but he was running), he opened the door to his flat. The flat was destroyed, and the bloodied, beaten up Winter Soldier was sitting on the floor, back against the wall. He was shot and stabbed, and Steve dropped his keys to the ground.

"Steve," Bucky said, his voice hoarse under the pain. Steve had never been disgusted by open injuries or blood, but he was frozen on the doorstep for longer than what he knew he was allowed. Then, adrenaline kicked in and he called the first person he could think of.

Sharon was sitting close to him on the plastic seats of the hospital, but not too close. He told her she didn't have to stay - without words, he begged her to do just that.

"Thank you," he murmured at 3 a.m, not being sure why he was thanking her exactly. For saving Bucky, or for saving Steve himself.

"He called me Steve for the first time," he said around 4:10 a.m, waking Sharon from a light slumber. He felt guilty, but her soft smile washed it away.

At 6 a.m, the doctors told Steve that Bucky would be fine soon. Steve didn't risk leaving him amongst strangers in a cold and triggering hospital room, and Bucky woke from sedation around noon, in Steve's flat.

He ripped the tubes from his arms and he managed to attack Steve before collapsing in less than ten seconds. A wound started bleeding again and Steve tended to it, not afraid of the deathly glares he was given in the meantime.

"The people who did this to you were taken care of," Steve said casually, trying to break the silence somehow. Bucky's breathing was shallow yet quick, as if he was angry for something. "S.H.I.E.L.D. promised they would take care of them."

"You saved me on the Helicarrier," Bucky said, his voice confused but as indifferent as always. Yet, it was somehow softer and Steve stopped stitching him up. "And you saved me yesterday."

"You saved me too," Steve nodded a little, a smile lingering in the corners of his mouth. Bucky watched him with slight wonder behind the ever present haze sitting on his eyes. "You didn't let me drown and you saved me probably countless times in the last couple weeks."

Bucky didn't answer, he just kept looking. It seemed as if he was putting together the pieces inside his head right now, and Steve put down the needle for a moment, his smile deepening.

"You were always there, Buck. Whether you wanted or not."

He finished the stitching then, and he was just about to stand up when Bucky turned to him suddenly.

"Til the end of the line."

Steve couldn't ignore how his throat narrowed in one second, but he didn't let the mixture of happiness and agony stand between them right now. Because Bucky remembered the single most important thing in the universe.

He smiled.

"Til the end of the line."

* * *

Bucky spoke little and didn't leave the house, only with Steve. He wore Steve's clothes and he watched crap TV, but he grew bored of it every time and picked up the book Steve currently finished. He seemed to especially like Orwell, and Steve didn't blame him.

He read Harry Potter instead of sleeping and Steve was often worried but he said nothing. Sometimes they spent hours in each other's company without talking, yet, Steve always knew what was filling Bucky's mind. Steve explained things without Bucky having to ask, and Bucky thanked him with one look in return. Steve remembered all of Bucky's favourite meals and made them for him, and only the recognition in Bucky's eyes with each taste of the food was worth the effort. It didn't make Bucky speak more, but it most certainly pieced him together a little bit.

They didn't talk about the recent events, but Steve talked about their past sometimes. He asked Bucky about memories, and he was as happy as a child whenever Bucky added something that Steve hoped he would remember. Most of the time, though, Bucky stayed silent and listened with wonder (wrapped up in an indifferent expression on his face) and nostalgia soon grew on the both of them.

It was an evening programme, talking about memories. And Steve had an endless thesaurus to draw from.

After a month, this evening habit was rescheduled to the middle of the night. Bucky started sleeping again and Steve knew now why he was so tentative to do so. Every night Steve woke to Bucky screaming in Russian on the top of his lungs, sweating, the blankets twisted around him, sobbing hysterically. First, he wouldn't even let himself be comforted, he would just throw Steve off the bed and heave alone, staring at Steve until he left the room. He seemed scared but Steve decided to give him time, even if his own heart was breaking because of it.

Once in a while it occured that Bucky woke himself before Steve could make it to the other room. Sometimes a heartwrenching "Steve", as if it was a plea or a magic word that would solve everything left his lips and Steve was there, holding him against his chest. Those times, Bucky let himself be comforted, and Steve enveloped him in his arms, breathing him in, becoming one with the Winter Soldier, making him melt some more.

"Steve," Bucky kept repeating over and over again and Steve closed his eyes, burying his face in the abundance of soft, dark locks. Bucky held them in a ponytail that Steve undid each night, then, he laid them down on the bed and kept Bucky close to him even there.

"You can go back to sleep, I'm not leaving now," Steve promised, his voice weak with exhaustion.

"Have we ever laid like this in the past?" Bucky asked, his voice strangely different from how he usually sounded. Steve thought it must have been his exhaustion that tricked his hearing (Bucky had never sounded this curious before), and he nodded. The warmth of menthol on his face tickled his skin.

"Yes, countless times," Steve answered, smiling as Bucky moved closer until their noses were touching. A shiver ran down his spine at the touch but he didn't withdraw.

"And have we done this?"

When Bucky's lips brushed against Steve's and Steve could taste what he could only smell and feel on his skin so far, his eyes automatically closed, but his body felt numb. He couldn't kiss back and Bucky pulled back a little, waiting for a response.

Steve's lips were still tingling as he opened his eyes.

"No, that's new," he answered honestly, feeling like a breath was caught between his lungs and his throat somewhere in the middle. He must have sounded differently, for Bucky gave him the light smile he had so often gave him lately, and Steve felt like he was struck by lightning. A jolt of pleasure was directed towards the bottom of his stomach and he took a deep breath. "Why?"

A flash of surprise appeared in Bucky's eyes but it was soon gone and he just pushed himself closer to Steve again, burying his face between Steve's neck and the pillow. They both fell asleep afterwards.

* * *

Kissing became part of their daily routine, even though Steve was pretty sure Bucky thought it would only be okay to do it if they were in the protective darkness of his room. He still had the nightmares but they were gradually less and less loud and violent, yet, each time Bucky asked Steve to stay. And it's not like Steve had anything better to do in the middle of the night so he stayed, locking lips with his best friend.

In the silence of the dawn their kisses eventually grew longer, lazier, hands became involved and moans were drawn out of otherwise cold lips. Bucky pressed himself up against Steve and Steve would have been insane to stop him - and he didn't want to. At first he was confused, but later, he was surprised to realise that he actually anticipated each night. During the day he often caught Bucky staring at him or, more likely, at his lips, with that wondering half-smile on his face, as if he was considering breaking the habit and kissing Steve right now. The temptation was huge to tell Bucky it wasn't only a late-night thing, that he would have let him during the day as well, but he didn't want to take this away from Bucky. To take this special thing they had, because it was only theirs and no one else was allowed to know about it.

After a while there were days when Steve woke in his own bed instead of Bucky's, and he was surprised to find that it made him disappointed and uneasy. What made him even more uneasy was the fact that, instead of being happy for Bucky not having nightmares, his first thought led him to his own selfish purposes. Which was, apparently, the disappointment that he could not kiss Bucky.

It was on one of these occasions that he walked into Bucky's room in the morning before the other woke.

Bucky was holding a pillow against his chest, carefully leaving the side of the bed empty where Steve was supposed to sleep. Steve could tell that he was deep in his dreams, also that they weren't bad, and also that it had to be the first time Bucky could rest properly. His sober self kept telling him to leave and let him be, but his other self won over and he climbed into the bed, watching Bucky from up close.

In the past, he never once thought that Bucky would be beautiful. That Bucky would be perfect. Of course, Bucky was handsome and Steve was always respectful and admiring towards him, but he never looked at him like this. Right now, all Steve could think about was touching him without waking him up, feeling the warmth of his skin without disturbing his sleep, making Bucky his own without feeling selfish about it. None of it was possible, and if he was already going to be selfish, he took the risk and said 'what the hell'.

Steve barely touched his lips to Bucky's when he felt the other moving underneath him. He was ready for Bucky to push him off, to get scared and go violent, but none of this happened. Bucky's lips opened under Steve's and their tongues brushed against each other, they moaned silently into each other's mouth.

And then, Steve was on top of him and Bucky wrapped his legs around his waist, his good arm around his neck, placing his left arm on Steve's elbow.

One touch was enough to tell.

It was Bucky. Not a deadly assassin, not a brainwashed victim of a greater power, it was his best friend.

In five minutes, clothes were scattered across the floor and the tables turned, Bucky pushing Steve against the bedsheets and claiming him from the top. Steve wondered if Bucky picked these moves up from newly discovered adult channels or he brought them with him from the 40s, but it was a thought of little relevance at the moment.

"You are going to lose it with me?" Bucky breathed, his mouth hot and wet against Steve's pulse. The blond's heartbeat picked up speed and he threw his head back, enjoying the burning touch of long fingers around his abdomen.

"My sanity?" Steve muttered, holding onto Bucky's side while Bucky was palming his cock through his boxers. Bucky chuckled quietly against his collarbone and Steve closed his eyes. It was all he could do to not explode.

"Your virginity."

Steve laughed out loud when Bucky removed both of their underwear with one movement of his left hand and pressed their cocks against each other. He felt so content he could have cried, but even a virgin knew it wouldn't have exactly been appropriate in this moment.

"I'm losing both with you, Bucky Barnes," he fidgeted until he could look Bucky in the eyes. Time froze around them and Bucky stopped teasing him for a moment, looking down at Steve with more Bucky in his eyes than Winter Soldier, for the first time since they were reunited.

Up to this point, Steve wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing. Now, no one could have made him doubt it.

He pulled Bucky down by the back of his neck and worked his lips open with his tongue while Bucky was pushing his fingers deep inside him. He bit on Bucky's lower lip and they both felt the taste of blood but none of them cared. Steve felt the rising sun burning his closed eyelids and he buried his fingers between Bucky's shoulderblades, pulling him closer until their chests were one. No one could have separated their heartbeats anymore and Bucky moved inside him, making space for something else.

In five minutes, the fingers were removed and the change was done. Bucky turned to his back, allowing Steve to rise and sink on him in his own speed and Steve pulled Bucky up, wrapping his arms around him, kissing him with beastly ferocity. He wasn't met with resentment.

They didn't talk about it, but neither of them could find their place in the world, even after Bucky moved out of the warehouse and started living with Steve. Right now, they both knew where their place was. They fit together like two pieces of the same puzzle, and one long look at each other was enough to draw the smile from them that they were so seldom to give anyone else.

Steve held Bucky through his orgasm first before allowing his own to shake his very being in its foundations, then, they lay down again, facing each other and bathing in the morning light. Bucky was fading with the aftermath of the pleasure and the Winter Soldier's confusion replaced him, but the smile that was still present on that face promised Steve things that could not be expressed with words.

There were no words for such peace and such happiness that Bucky would one day constantly bring to Steve's life.

"Did I ever love anyone?" Bucky asked quietly, leaving Steve breathless for a moment. His hand was lingering above Steve's neck and he was gently touching the blond hair once in a while, slowly, lazily, out of routine.

"You always said you couldn't love easily, but when you did, you loved with your entire being," Steve said, his voice barely above a whisper. He remembered Bucky casually talking about girls who dumped him, like it was the natural way of things, and Steve would never forget the look in Bucky's eyes. He said he didn't care but everyone he truly cared about and who eventually left him took a piece of him with them. Now those pieces were missing from the whole, the whole that would make Bucky Bucky. And not even Steve could put him back together this way.

You can't put the rooftop on the house while the walls are missing, can you?

"I feel like I could love you like that," Bucky said, running his thumb lightly across Steve's face first, then, Steve's lips. And Steve smiled with his heart beating in his throat, pushing himself closer to Bucky until they were almost one, until they breathed the same air, until their lips brushed against each other as they spoke. "With time, I might just love you like that."

Steve closed his eyes and opened his lips for a breath that Bucky let out. He tasted a kiss in that space between them already.

"I can wait."


End file.
